I often tell friends who are struggling to put food on their plate they should apply for SNAP or go to the food bank

They often reply that they don't want to take it from the people who really need it

Friends, if your bank account is zilch and you're begging online for donations to buy food, you're the people who really need it. It's for you. I only ever got myself out of poverty by taking advantage of every social service available.

Try the food bank.

@shel People's not availing themselves of the safety net programs that exist and are targeted *at them* is a huge problem in the US. It's also pretty definitive proof that social safety net programs mostly don't create the dependence that conservatives claim they do.

@seanl @shel I'd argue that there is a dependence effect, but it's not what conservatives claim.

While in another reply I advocated for use of things like unemployment and disability, you're effectively penalized for trying to get off of those systems. I found that when I was on unemployment, working odd jobs actually cost money (whatever I earned, I would lose exactly that amount of unemployment, and have to wait 3 weeks to get paid for time I wasn't working).

@seanl @shel The upshot was, underemployment was worse for my finances than unemployment (I had to pay for fuel to get to odd jobs, and got the same amount of pay, plus had cash flow issues), so I didn't take odd jobs or very low-paying jobs.